Stop the Torture Already
by Anne11
Summary: Metafiction. Bobby and Remy pay a late night visit to a certain comic writer.


"Stop the Torture Already"  
Author: Anne  
Rating: R for language only  
Chars: Remy, Bobby, a comic writer who shall go nameless...  
Disclaimer: No one below belongs to me. If they did, some of them would be a hell of a lot happier.

From the diary of "X-writer"

_I keep telling myself there had to be something wrong with that last pint of Chunky Monkey. Something Salmonella, E Coli wrong. I mean, what I saw and heard can't have been real.  
  
Yet there's the window I don't remember opening. And the lamp I don't remember breaking. Not to mention the chunks of ice melting all over my back yard...  
_  
The night had been a fairly uneventful one. Write, eat, sleep. All had been going according to plan. So much so that he'd allowed himself a little ice cream before bed. He'd long ago learned that good periods of writing came more frequently with regular rewards, and ice cream was one of the best ways to give his subconscious what it was craving.  
  
Unfortunately, one thing it had not been craving was his sleep being broken by a loud crash, followed by a hand clamped across his mouth. A very, very cold hand. One that as lucidity and wakefulness slid across his brain, he realized was a hand made totally of ice.  
  
He opened his eyes and tried not to faint back into unconsciousness.  
  
The ice sculpture standing by the side of his bed pulled his hand away. Behind him, there was a normal flesh-toned man with a bandage across his eyes backing away from the writer's bedside table, now covered in pieces of wire mixed with ceramic. "Sorry about the lamp," the ice sculpture said. "Remy doesn't quite have the hang of sneaking around the way he used to. Has to do with not being able to see anymore." The sculpture crossed his arms. "But then, you'd know something about that, wouldn't you?"  
  
The writer sat up and pulled the cotton sheets protectively over his torso. He rubbed a hand over the lower half of his face. It felt wet. "I don't..." he said. "You can't..." He dropped his hand to the mattress. "You both can't be here. You're not real."  
  
The blind man swung his face back around towards the writer, turning from where he'd been facing the opposite side of the room. "'You're not real,'" he parroted. "So sure of dat, are you? Even when we're standing here, in our maimed and mutated states before you?"  
  
The sculpture laid a cold hand on the blind man's shoulder. "What did you expect, Remy?" he asked. "I think we can tell from the things he keeps having us and our friends do that he can't be that bright." He pulled the hand back and pointed it at the writer. "Hell, there's even a reviewer who says his work's on the level of a retarded seven year-old. Considering all of that, I'd say we probably shouldn't expect a hell of a lot from him tonight."  
  
The blind man stumbled forward and felt along the edge of the bed, checking where he was. "Remy don't care," he said. "Remy just want this over. Can't be useful if can't see. Can't be good for Rogue if I'm blaming her and everyone else fo' my uselessness. Remy needs this fixed."  
  
The sculpture sighed, dropping the accusing hand. "I know, man, I know." He glanced at the sheets covering the writer, and the writer thought he saw a thin coating of frost on the edges of the cotton.  
  
"Do you see what you've done to him?" the sculpture asked, icy hands swinging between himself and the blind man. "Hell, do you see what you've done to me? I don't know what's worse. What you've done to our bodies or what you've done to our personalities. I mean, this..." He ran a hand up and down his torso. "Is bad enough. Do you have to make us lash out at everybody too? Because you know, having been altered and crippled...no way we'd want to have our friends be there for us in a time of need or anything. That would be just too logical. Or obvious. Or something else I'm too dumb to think of."  
  
The writer ran a finger along the edge of the sheet. Yes, frost. That was definitely frost. He tried not to gape at the sculpture when he looked at the icy form, but he could feel his jaw hanging low, no matter how he tried. He moved his mouth and made it attempt an answer.  
  
"But you both don't understand," he said. "I'm just trying to make you both interesting. Insert a little difficulty, a little angst into your stories. Fans love that sort of thing. We know. We get letters."  
  
The blind man threw his hands up into the air. "Fans love angst when it's done well!" he shouted. "This is not 'done well angst.' Troubles are supposed to bring people together, make them closer. You just use them to push people apart. What's the point of that? What good does it do us to suffer if it don't work to make us closer to the ones we're supposed to love?"  
  
The writer stared at the blind man, eyes drawn to the bandaged eyes. "But, it will. I promise. You just have to give it time..."  
  
The sculpture snorted. "Yeah. Time." Cold eyes focused on the writer, and the frost creeped up the sheets a little more. "How long have you had me dealing with the whole 'my chest is turning to ice' deal? Did you have me go to any of my friends about it? Say, maybe my best friend, the big, blue-furred doctor?!" A mist of water started to seep into the writer's sheets. "I mean, I can see being a little embarrassed about not handling it well, but sooner or later, you'd think I'd have to kick myself in the ass and go see him. Except, you know, when I didn't."

The sculpture ran a hand down the middle of his chest, then flung it out to his side. "Exactly how pathetic do you want to have me be?!"  
  
The writer gripped his sheets, ignoring the now-increasing cold and wetness. "I didn't..." he said. "I mean, I intended to..."  
  
The blind man abruptly turned and starting feeling his way towards the open second story window. "We're wasting our time here, ice cube," he said, carefully finding the sill. "He ain't about to see what we're talkin' about. We oughta just go home and try throwing ourselves on our friends' mercies."  
  
The sculpture nodded. "If we even have any friends left," he said. The sculpture walked away from the edge of the bed and gently laid his hands on the blind man's shoulders, pulling the man away from the window. The writer watched until he realized that his sheets had suddenly become dry again.  
  
"Wait!" he called. "I don't want you to think...I honestly did believe that I was doing a good job with you guys. I thought I was giving you fan appeal."  
  
The sculpture gestured angrily with his hands, cutting off the writer and making an ice slide out to the back yard. "We don't care. Just fix us," he said. He helped the blind man find his footing and watched as the other carefully slid down to the ground. Then began to step out himself, throwing one last remark over his shoulder as he did so.  
  
"I mean, who the fuck do you think you are? A fanfic writer? Leave the angst and torture to them." He stepped over the sill. "Most of them do it way better than you do anyway."  
  
And with that, he slid out into the night. The writer watched him as he left. Then quickly hopped out of bed to get to his computer.  
  
He adjusted the thermostat as he walked by it. The house suddenly felt a whole lot colder.  
  
Fin.


End file.
